The short term interest rate is regularly set and maintained by the FED and it’s open market operations.

The FED now also openly admits buying their own debt as quantitative easing. This serves to suppress long term interest rates thus, directly influencing the long term interest rate markets, and the real estate market.

Thus, the FED today manipulates the prices of assets from currencies to real assets.

In some circles (mostly only in the corporate media where board members are also wall street executives) it is still a subject of debate whether or not the FED and the Treasury have adopted a policy of intervening in the stock market to promote stability and market confidence. From stories about the PPT, to the FED stating that they would use “any means necessary” to stabilize the economy. From huge market rebounds 5 minutes after a call from the Secretary of the Treasury to the people who profess to be doing gods work, to the CEO of trimtabs stating that he sees no other possibility than government intervention, people will still debate this topic, in the corporate media at least.

Out in the real world, “Don’t fight the FED” extends to market operations in any or all asset classes. The debate is confined only as to how much, when and who. On the floor, the only entity who isn’t aware of anonymous accounts that can make the market turn at will in Chicago are the regulators. Then again, the regulators are the graduate alumni of the people who appear to need regulating.

The debate doesn’t stop at the share markets however. Recent on the record revelations from a metals trader allege what the so called conspiracy theorists have been saying all along, that there is a conspiracy among the centrals via their member banks to manipulate the price of gold and other metals. The corporate media chose not to discuss the subject at all.

In looking at the markets as a speculator, the conclusion is that there is more than enough evidence that the FED, the Treasury and the large banks all operate with increasing influence and heavy handedness in all markets.

It has become required to stabilize an unstable system, first as an emergency measure then now as a matter of course and necessity. On the FED’s visible balance sheet there are toxic mortgages and on the invisible balance sheet it is impossible to ascertain what assets they own since they won’t say and have never been audited to force any disclosure.

A larger point, and the subject of this thought experiment is to think about the effects of managed or buffered markets on the psyche of the market participants.

The obvious reflexive idea at work here is that if the market participants believe the system is inherently stable or priced at a certain level on it’s own accord, then confidence in it would be far higher than if the participants believed that it needed intervention to keep it stable. This increased confidence could in itself affect the behavior of the markets when they are exposed to crisis or stress situations.

By reducing the interest rate to and below the real rate of increase in the cost of living, a negative savings rate discourages and even penalizes savings. It makes saving money a guaranteed loss and encourages speculative risk taking with non risk capital in search for a return.

If the market had dived during the 2008 period this could have permanently altered risk models and permissible leverage going forward. It could have reduced investor risk tolerance. It could have caused an even greater loss of confidence in the US capital markets resulting in unacceptable side effects from insolvency to failure of the entire system.

Knowing all this, is it possible that the FED or the Treasury have introduced a false sense of investor security by financing open market operations via a printing press? The implied assumption of course is that the printing press can run forever and as powerfully as necessary to fix any problem that might arise. The current FED chairman stated explicitly and now infamously that the FED could do just that by dropping money(debt) out of helicopters if necessary.

The reality however is that the printing press cannot print more debt than the capacity to finance it. We must recognize that reality in the same way that we recognize the FED and the banking system is not a goose that lays golden eggs. In spite of what the FED chairman would have you believe, it cannot fix any problem by printing any necessary quantity of money, because that is the same as increasing the debt up to and infinitely beyond it’s ability to be repaid.

Because of these facts, it is arguable that both investor psychology as well as quantitative risk models have become skewed and are now RELIANT on the previously mentioned assumptions for it’s continued existence. The implication is that if investor psyche has been manipulated or altered along with the markets, it is not a reliable indicator of future market direction or market stability. All forward looking indicators could be entirely wrong as a result of reflexive policies and it’s resultant social engineering.

The idea of markets that discount the future by a market consensus based on reliable information becomes flawed. Recognizing the markets are managed is no different than recognizing that investor psyche is also managed. One is a reflection and a reflexive view of the other.

In thinking about all of the above, the next obvious question is, how does an eventual convergence of reality (the FED cannot create an infinite amount of debt to fix any problem) with a belief in golden eggs (the belief that they can and enabled only by the illusions of manipulation) manifest itself?

The answer lies in this fact:

The amount of debt is continuously increased into a geometric progression of diminishing returns as the capacity to buy the ever increasing amount of debt moves ever smaller as a fraction of the debt required to maintain and inflate the balloon.

Thus it can be argued as it was in two possible paths with the same endpoint that we have an unstable and technically defunct system masquerading as a stable system. This current divergence can be reconciled either through asset value inflation, or through failure via mass insolvency. If it is reconciled through inflation it will appear as decay over a long period of time leading to chaos and civil instability due to a standard of living collapse. If it is reconciled through mass insolvency it will appear as a rapid onset of the same thing.

Filed under: markets

For nations living the good life, the party’s over, IMF says
By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 24, 2010Address

Greece hit by new riots as pressure grows to quit euro
By Christopher Leake
25th April 2010
Support for the bail-out of debt-ridden Greece was in doubt last night, leaving the country on the brink of financial meltdown as top German politicians said it should be forced to quit the euro. Riots erupting during workers’ protests over planned public spending cuts, just hours after Greek Premier George Papandreou sought emergency £35billion of loans from eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. The Greek government was finally forced to ask for international help after the cost of its borrowing spiralled to a new high, making it prohibitively expensive to borrow money to service existing debts.Address

Lawmakers: Military could quell Chicago violence
CHICAGO — Two Illinois lawmakers say violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the National Guard must be called in to help. Chicago Democratic Reps. John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford made a public plea to Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday to deploy troops.Address

From the Sky, Detroit Looks Like Sarajevo
Chris Hansen traveled to Detroit, Michigan for a Dateline special that aired tonight on the state of what is probably America’s most desolate city. And in aerial footage—devastation porn at its best—Detroit’s grim plight was revealed. Video inside. “Today, from the air, parts of Detroit look like a war zone,” Hansen said in a voiceover near the beginning of the special, before he listed some of the most shocking facts about the city’s current state—the population is less than half of what it was decades ago; there are 400 liquor stores there, but only eight supermarkets—all while panning shots of the consequences of its deterioration flashed on the screen.Address

Marc Faber – Governments are Going Bust!AddressGreenspan Wanted Housing-Bubble Dissent Kept Secret
05- 3-10
As top Federal Reserve officials debated whether there was a housing bubble and what to do about it, then-Chairman Alan Greenspan argued that dissent should be kept secret so that the Fed wouldn’t lose control of the debate to people less well-informed than themselves. “We run the risk, by laying out the pros and cons of a particular argument, of inducing people to join in on the debate, and in this regard it is possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand,” Greenspan said, according to the transcripts of a March 2004 meeting.Address

ECB President Favors Global Governance
April 29, 2010
The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, told Forbes that global governance is extremely necessary if we want to prevent another financial crisis. In his prepared printed and spoken remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, Trichet emphasized that politicians, economists, and financiers must work across the Atlantic and collaborate on methods to create an international set of standards.Address

Rigged-Market Theory Scores a Perfect Quarter: Jonathan Weil
by Jonathan Weil
May 13 (Bloomberg) — Score another triumph for the rigged- market theory. In a feat that would seem to defy the odds, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America this week each said its trading desk made money every day of the first quarter. Goldman said its daily net trading revenue topped $100 million 35 times last quarter out of 63 trading days. JPMorgan and Bank of America disclosed similar eye-popping stats. Citigroup, too, recorded a profit on each trading day, Bloomberg News reported, citing unnamed people who knew the results.AddressExclusive: The Bank Of England Engaged In Flagrant Gold Manipulation In The Interwar Period Via The New York Fed; Does History Repeat Itself?
Tyler Durden
02/13/2010
An article written by University of Tennessee professor John R Garrett, “Monetary Policy and Expectations: Market-Control Techniques and the Bank of England, 1925-1931”, which describes in exquisite detail the gold falsification measures undertaken by the Bank of England in the interwar period in order to impact interest rates in a favorable direction, performed with the full criminal complicity of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, may mean paranoid “gold bugs” could soon be forever absolved of their “tin hat” wearing status as outright gold, and other data, manipulation by a major central bank is now proven beyond doubt. The implications regarding the possibility of comparable deceitful and treasonous acts by modern central bankers are staggering.AddressGerman Economics Minister Confirms Fed Manipulates The FX Market
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
05/28/2010
The German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle has just confirmed precisely what many have known and said for years, namely that the US Federal Reserve is active in the secondary markets, in this particular case in FX.Address

Turn on the TV, turn on the radio, plug in the internet…big box of talk. Label after label after label. Talk, talk and more talk. I have a lot of questions, and some ideas regarding why according to recent polling data a staggeringly low 4 percent of the public supports the establishment political class[10], why only 8 percent would re elect an incumbent lawmaker[11], why just 21% believe U.S. Government has the consent of the governed[12] , why 4 out of 5 Americans don’t trust Washington[13], and why nearly one out of three Americans view the US government as a “major threat” to their freedoms[14].

With the government, big business, big banking and big media all seeming like one in the same today, some analysts have argued this is Mussolini’s definition of fascism[2]. It is clear that the same small group of faces rotate into one position from out of another position and no matter how bad any of them screw up, you still see the same faces. There is no debate about that.

These elite are free to break laws and commit crimes right out in the open and nothing bad ever happens to them. There is no accountability, there is no punishment [21]. Public elected officials break laws and change laws and embezzle money and slosh taxpayer money back and forth among themselves and their friends and no matter how egregious the crimes, no matter how on the record and absolutely wrong they have been, no matter how many people they have killed or how many lives they have wrecked or how fabulously wealthy they have become in the process of doing so, they are still the same people in and out of a revolving door all smiling and patting each other on the back while congratulated and treated with the utmost respect by the corporate media [22].

Other labels being thrown around in the past few years to explain this transformation are oligarchy, plutocracy, kleptocracy, aristocracy, socialism, totalitarianism, empire, and more[3,4,5,6,7,31]. The defective establishment media mirror uses the implausible argument for everything being different “it’s the same as it ever was” or “what are you even talking about?”. It’s almost like a corporate media induced mass hypnosis is in effect and has gripped the entire nation.

“Just move on nothing to see here”.

With the government takeover of housing and now owning many of the largest public corporations, some have argued a tilt towards communism, although no one seems comfortable using that label. No two situations are ever the same however, and none of these labels seem to completely capture the transformation taking place in the United States over not months or years but over decades and accelerating during the past decade.[9,23]

The people of the United States typically call themselves one of two labels, either republicans or democrats. The interesting thing about that is that nationwide, for the past decade now under the stewardship of each of the labels, the public approval ratings of congress and the administration have been arguably about as low as they can be and recently dipping into the single digits for public approval for the first time ever[11]. Something is definitely wrong and no one seems to know what to call it[23,25].

WTF?

So despite what everyone is calling themselves, according to the polls, the citizens themselves don’t seem to be very happy about how things are going. Is there a label for that? Is it a disaffected-detached-ocracy? Maybe it is a so-busy-trying-to-get-by-you-can’t-keep-up-ocracy? Maybe it’s a

When did we cross the threshold from where there was any party or politician which stood for small limited government, small government spending, free enterprise and a government like the US had decades ago that mostly stayed out of the way of it’s citizens? What about a government for the people? There is apparently no one for the people today. Today it seems to be an all out contest for who can suck up the most to the most special interest payola while simultaneously lying their asses off to the people they are supposedly representing[10].

There is no one who will be allowed to be a legitimate contender by the established media, party, and banking system who doesn’t support the status quo. You can even be elected on a platform of change people hope for, and then completely ignore everything you said. How convenient. What kind of a message is sent to the people when someone is elected on a platform of lies? Exactly what point was it where lying about everything to the people became ok and even necessary[1,9]?

Politicians in DC will blame things like a “bad economy” for their current record low approval ratings. It seems obvious that when a candidate is elected on a platform of change the population was desperately hoping for, they expect delivery. After the systematic dismantling of the constitution by the previous administration, the new administration turned out to be more or less exactly the same. What happens when only 4% support the status quo[10], and you get more status quo no matter which handle you pull? Do they lose another 50% of their base and go to 2%? That could continue until you need scientific notation to express their percentage of support. Then what?

The Judicial branch. Their contribution was to officially terminate the republic in 2010 by allowing unlimited corporate campaign contributions. It’s hard to say if that bothered people because most people still don’t know about it. The corporate media didn’t talk very much about allowing their unlimited corporate contributions for their sponsored choices. So the same wars are still going on, the same policies are in place, and the same people are running things. So maybe some people are disappointed about that? It is certainly possible. Could this explain the hopelessness citizens are recording in surveys? If so what do you call that?

Could mortgaging the country’s future to bail out some arrogant bankers who lost all their money have caused some loss of trust? I don’t think bailing out the banking system so they could then in turn make record profits was the kind of change people were hoping for. I could be wrong about that. People can understand how things have improved dramatically for the bankers on wall street with now record profits and bonuses, but the people who are home unemployed because their factory shut down aren’t buying it. They aren’t buying anything because they have no money. What is that called? Can we throw a label and a sound bite on that….please?

You can’t just “run” for office today. Lets be serious. The corporate media would have you believe you can just throw your hat into the ring and off you go. You need this giant political machine behind you to grease every palm along the way. You have to be sponsored and vetted by the media before anyone even hears your name. If you cross any of the medias agendas or sponsors you are political toast within 48 hours. Votes are bought and sold like trading cards. As a citizen, you basically have to be for someone who is more or less the same as everyone else with an expertly crafted public persona. What is the word for that? The label oligarchy doesn’t seem to do justice to that much concentration of wealth, power and deceit. A so called two party system with no real choice is totalitarianism in drag[6]. Please vote for your favorite candidate. Then expect the same thing no matter which lever you pull. You get vanilla or french vanilla with sprinkles. Take your ice cream cone and move on.

Maybe it’s a one-big-vampire-thing-ocracy?

Regardless of political parties, one thing is clear to every person who has been living in the US for more than a few years. There are ever more rules. they keep making new rules, and they never take any of the old rules away. There are more fees, and more taxes, and more things that used to be free that are no longer free, things that now require a license, a certification, an approval, something you used to be allowed to do but are no longer allowed to do, or some other kind of relinquishment of a former right. There is a nanny state which dictates to you what where when how and why to do just about everything you are supposed to do.

You got a problem with that?

Well then, apply for a permit and after paying the necessary fees and getting the necessary approvals you might be able to hold up a sign in a pre defined fenced off area back there by the dumpsters that says “I do not approve of all of this, I think I’m starting to know how people living in the soviet union felt”. Maybe. Storm troopers in riot gear would be deployed to stand next to you to ensure you didn’t wave the sign or otherwise cause any hazard to the public who needs protecting.

What is it called when a country goes from being a decent place to live to some sort of paranoid, locked down disneyworld where nothing is real and all the people are making less, paying more, requiring permits and fees and approvals to do anything? What do you call that?

This vampire squid nanny state tells you what to do, and how much it will cost you in fees, fines, or whatever if you don’t do it exactly that way. It assumes you cannot think for yourself and you need to be protected from yourself and everyone else. It means you are not competent to run your life so the nanny state will run it for you. It prohibits and inhibits small business due to taxation, regulation, barriers to entry and cost of operation. It destroys the simple civil rights Americans used to take for granted one by one and little by little like breaking rocks until nothing is left but a pile of dust. It gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger until it runs out of food which is in this case money[15].

The book of rules have become so large and so onerous that the only thing you can be sure of is that despite your best intentions, you are probably breaking some rules right now that you don’t even know about. At the same time you will be considered negligent if you don’t know what they are. The only constant is ever more rules and an ever larger government required to enforce and update them.

You are still free to go to work, pay your fees, taxes and watch their corporate programming and sports entertainment or whatever. You can pay only a couple of days salary to watch some corporate whores toss a ball back and forth at corporate field and whoop it up for one color or the other with your fellow buffoons.

This is all true whether you are short or tall, uneducated or educated, higher or lower income, white, black, red or yellow, left or right or anywhere in the middle. It is true whether you worship any god or all gods or no god. Any political or special interest hacks who argue otherwise now sound like a cartoon. No one can legitimately argue the ever increasing number of rules, fees, permits, restrictions, taxes and regulations and loss of rights[12].

So the government and the politicians are all for one thing. An ever larger government who is your nanny. What is that called? Maybe it is the world takeover by nanny statists? For this reason or that reason or to protect you from bad guys or from your own self, you need a huge book of rules and regulations and it needs to keep getting bigger all the time.

Now you need to get scanned by Acme Corporation x ray scanners to get on an airplane.

Being a good citizen however, you recognize that all of these new rules and regulations and fees and taxes have all been instituted for your own protection and well being. You feel so much better knowing that you need to be protected from enemies of your government that you are willing to relinquish all your former rights and privileges and put up with endless new hassles. It’s all being done for you on your behalf and you appreciate that. It is necessary. That’s what you keep being told at least. Just say duh thanks.

Some have used the term vampire squid to depict an over reaching banking system but it is pretty easy to argue after living here for a few years that the entire thing is a vampire squid.

Post 911 has ushered in new departments and new regulations and new and more of everything that restricts what is permissible or not because now you need to be protected from people living in caves, or something like that. The general idea I think was that some hard drinking devout muslims who liked strip clubs and Jack Abramoff’s casino??? came out of their caves and went to flight school, became marginal pilots and on their first attempt defeated the entire NORAD air defense system, all airport security, and flew two sophisticated jumbo jets perfectly into the sides of buildings pulverizing them into dust and defying a whole host of laws of physics in the process. Following that, the only thing remaining ﻿﻿were passports from the hijackers, which somehow did not turn to dust but instead fluttered to the ground intact, were picked up by an anonymous passer by and delivered to the NYPD. The whole mess was then hauled off to China in the blink of an eye violating every written rule regarding a crime scene investigation. A bunch of still unidentified parties made a fortune in the options markets from foreknowledge[29], the building owners were generously compensated and I lost track of the rest of the story line a while back. It was getting too complicated.

The main character was a guy with a name I couldn’t pronounce popping in and out of caves and issuing death threats every time the population needs a good scare. I don’t know if they ever caught him or not. I have heard also that we are still in two wars as a result of all of that, one now being the longest in US history. I’m not sure. They don’t talk about it on TV any more.

So to the best of my knowledge, you are supposed to see a Hollywood style demolition which changes every aspect of your life as a citizen for the worse, and not ask any questions. Sort of like in China you can’t talk about Tienanmen square and in the US you can’t talk about 911 because even if you ask a question, it somehow makes you the enemy or a sympathizer or something along those lines. I don’t know exactly what the rules are regarding that. So what I do is if anyone mentions 911 I just close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears. I don’t want to let any sympathizers in[20].

After using a Pentium class computer and performing billions of calculations to compute your taxes, you have no idea exactly where the money goes, but I know it isn’t nearly enough to feed it, as the national debt accumulates by more than the average individual net worth every second of every day.

So where does this end? Is it tyranny when a population are told exactly how to do everything they have to do in life, or is it only tyranny if what you are expected to tolerate is really bad? If so then who gets to define what “really bad” is? At what point is it, ok, just a pain, really a pain, or really bad? For example right now, traveling on an airplane is just a pain, compared to say, a root canal. It is however really bad compared to say 1970. So we are dealing with a set of relative issues here and static labels aren’t particularly useful.

Currently, as by every statistic known, the wealth is transferring from the many to the (very) few. How and why exactly is that happening? I’m not talking about lower to higher income either for the political hacks out there reading on the ethernet. No one reading this essay will fall into the group where the wealth is being transferred to. The wealth is being transferred to people whose portfolios contain shares of say, the FED and the Bank of England[15].

Is this wealth and power consolidation all a big accident? It isn’t happening by democrats OR republicans.It’s happening over each so called “party” presiding. Is that related at all to the changes we have seen in government? What is that called? Some people call it an oligarchy when the many are controlled by the few, but how does the oligarchy get and maintain it’s power? Is that what we have? Is that the reason for all the rules? [24].

Does the vampire squid nanny state power reside in levying so many rules, fees, permits, taxes and regulations that it is the sum total of it all at the root of the increasing oppression? Is that how the vampire squid attacks? Death by 1000 cuts? How does that end up? What is a good name for that? [26]

What should you call it when every thing that comes from the corporate media looks like it was created by the largest growing segment of business in the US, a PR firm?

If the government has already issued debt beyond the people’s capacity to earn enough to repay it, then what does that mean? Does that mean like bankruptcy but you just haven’t filed yet? Do you think everyone soon will be able to add a zero to how much they make creating a remote possibility that the debt could be repaid? So what is it called when a nanny state empire goes bankrupt? What is the name for that?

Maybe it really doesn’t matter what the name is. Maybe it only matters what it is. Maybe you are living through the decline of an empire and the decay associated with that[19]. Empires don’t fail overnight. It can happen so slowly that you fail to see it. The politicians are failing[12], the institutions are failing[18], the society is failing and the economy is failing. The empire is entirely bankrupt both economically[16], and morally[17].

What it is will continue to self destruct on it’s own without any further assistance. It doesn’t require a label.

[11] Poll: Only 8 percent support incumbents
By Jordan Fabian
02/12/10
Only 8 percent of adults would reelect incumbent lawmakers, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.Address

[12] Only 21% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.Address

[13] Poll: 4 out of 5 Americans don’t trust Washington
Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don’t trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America’s ills, the survey found.Address

[14] One third of Americans say own govt a threat: Poll AFP
Mon Apr 19
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly one out of three Americans view the US government as a “major threat” to their freedoms, and four out of five say they don’t trust Washington to solve their problems, according to a new poll out Monday.Address

[17] U.S. Troops Apologize For Wikileaks Massacre Video
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2010the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.”Address

[18] The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage
50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.”Address

[22] Cheney/Halliburton Chronology
Published by CitizenWorks.org and HalliburtonWatch.orgAddress

[23] Poll: Americans’ distrust of federal government is deepening
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
A new study released Monday shows Americans have grown more critical, less trusting and even fearful of Uncle Sam since Barack Obama took office. The Pew Research Center poll found Americans reject the idea of an activist government, and a growing number urge its power be curtailed.Address

[24] Senate Leaders Trade Charges of Improper Relations With Wall Street
Updated April 21, 2010
FOXNews.com
As the debate over how to reshape federal oversight of the nation’s largest banks heats up, the top Senate leaders of both political parties are finding themselves in a war of words, charging each other with being in bed with Wall Street executives. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, of holding “backroom negotiations” with financial executives in New York earlier this month when they held a private meeting to discuss the impact of the financial overhaul bill. Republicans have returned fire at Reid for holding a recent fundraiser in New York City that was set up by Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, a longtime Democrat.Address

[25] Americans going mad with anger
By LISA VAN DUSEN, QMI Agency
April 21, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Maybe Howard Beale was right. Maybe when Peter Finch’s tele-ranter urged his viewers in “Network” to go to their windows and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” into the evening void, he was ahead of his time on the primal scream therapy front. These days, anger in America is such an epidemic that there’s a chat show running on MSNBC this week actually called America the Angry. It’s a good week for it.Address

[26] Collapse of the Standard of Living in the USA
Studies Reveal Declining Living Standards and Increasing Anger
by Hiram Lee
Global Research, April 24, 2010Address

“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

As noted in a citizens guide to understanding corporate media propaganda techniques, today six global mega corporations control all the media consumed by Americans in the form of Television, Radio, Movies, Music, Newspapers, Magazines and any other form of media outside the internet. For a decade or more, this elitist media mogul cartel has enjoyed a complete monopoly on news and information for the mainstream. The “wrong” ideas, information or opinions have simply been edited out, buried or attacked.

As the internet has come of age however, now people have an alternative to all media produced by a small cabal. While it is arguable that the vast majority of all populations are still programmed by Television, this is changing. Today there is an ever increasing long list of news from the emerging alternative media via blogs, video and audio interviews, forums, messages etc. Statistics show that more and more people are consuming their news and information from the internet.

One of the most important aspects of this change is a yardstick from which to measure the accuracy of the information being dispensed (and even more importantly not being dispensed) by the media cartel. If day in and day out you are reading news, information and ideas not presented by the cartel, an awareness begins to develop that there is a concerted attempt to control the information flow, attitudes and reality of the information consuming public. A level of distrust begins and as an individual, an awareness sets in that you are being repeatedly lied to or programmed, with intent. This awareness transcends politics and reveals that the agenda is not one of left or right, but one of the personal agendas of the moguls who own and control the very few, very large media corporations.

Arguably, the most powerful people in the world today are the small cartel of owners of the corporate media. They can make or break politicians of their choosing. They can program the attitudes of the general public. You will believe what they want you to believe through sophisticated dealing of propaganda. Their power has become so concentrated and so awesome, the media moguls have become accustomed to it as if it is an entitlement that goes with the money and power of the positions. It is flaunted in quotes by the moguls themselves.

The important point is this. If you are an internet aware news and information consumer, then you are also aware of the complete failure of the corporate media to cover one important story after another. You are aware of the bias injected into stories they do cover. Each example becomes just one entry in a long line of corporate media self de legitimization.

As people become aware of the corporate bias because of a standard from which to measure against, consumers will, and they are, going elsewhere. Furthermore, with news and information from the private sector being increasingly available and free, this challenges the business model of paid for news and information.

There are a lot of reasons often cited for the decline of the bottom line of the corporate media oligarchy, but self de legitimization is an increasingly important factor as a greater percentage of the worlds population seek free news and information from other sources. The corporate media is rendering itself obsolete. They are being exposed as liars or shills for corporations, special interests, big government and big banking. They are not going to have a viable business model for selling lies and omission as news, because people are unwilling to pay for it.

Good riddance. They have no one to blame but themselves.

filed under: corporate media subversion of a democracy

Fox “news” continues CBS, ABC, CNN propaganda to attack Iran: today’s CIA Operation Mockingbird
April 6
LA County Nonpartisan Examiner
Carl Herman
In the video clip from Fox below, Bill Kristol advocates US military attack on Iran because he predicts that Israel will attack Iran. This is propaganda for an unlawful war for the following “emperor has no clothes” obvious reasons. Fox “reporting” is also a manipulative variation of the same war drone I’ve documented from CBS, ABC, and CNN.* The US-created treaty of the UN legally forbids armed attack unless a nation’s government is attacking the US or there is imminent threat of attack. IAEA confirms all of Iran’s nuclear material is used for legal energy and medical isotopes; there is no threat of an attack from Iran. Therefore, US military attack is an unlawful War of Aggression; the worst crime a nation can commit, and in violation of US treaty and the US Constitution. All US military have an oath to support and defend the US Constitution and trained to refuse unlawful orders. Those with authority are obligated to arrest those who issue unlawful orders. The end of Wars of Aggression is the victory of all Americans who sacrificed in WW2. Fox allows Mr. Kristol’s advocacy of unlawful war and rejection of this victory for peace. Fox’s lie of omission to not discuss the laws of war is not accidental; it is war propaganda.Address

U.S. Troops Apologize For Wikileaks Massacre Video
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2010
Former U.S. Army specialists Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord have now publicly apologized for the massacre, expressing in an open letter to the Iraqi people their sorrow at the incident while pointing out that it represents just one example of the brutal suffering inflicted on the Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion. “We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions,” states the letter. “We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.”Address

Washington Post Writer: Internet Journalism Is “Sort Of Like Terrorism”
In the same breath Pulitzer prize winning dinosaur decries use of “loaded” rhetoric
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010Address

Newspaper Circulation Falls Nearly 9%
By JOSEPH PLAMBECK
April 26, 2010
The reality facing many American newspaper publishers continues to look stark, as figures released Monday show deep circulation declines, with average weekday sales down almost 9 percent since the same time last year.Address

CNN Co-Founder: CNN Is at Risk of Becoming a Bad Joke
By P.J. Gladnick
Wed, 04/28/2010
The April ratings are in and CNN is at its lowest point in my memory. All four of the major news networks lost numbers from last April to this April, but in percentages, CNN was down about twice as much as any of its competitors.Address

Americans remaining ill-informed is inexcusable
By Paul J. Balles
30 April 2010
Paul J. Balles comments on the ironic misfortune that, despite having all the technology to be informed, Americans remain generally ignorant bystanders amid an increasingly antagonistic Congress and a biased, sloppy and uninformative media.Address

In 2008, the peoples capacity to finance the debt they carried was exceeded. A global balloon of debt burst causing the largest financial crisis in world history. As articulated by the former Secretary of the Treasury to the US congress, a near cataclysmic chain reaction breakdown of the entire global financial system occurred. With the near systemic failure of the existing financial system, the Keynesian economic model was exposed as a fraud, and other theories and ideas are now emerging in an attempt to better explain past events as well as to offer predictive value that the now discredited Keynesian model will surely fail to predict.

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. – John Maynard Keynes

It is a current subject of debate whether the debt was intentionally inflated to an unsustainable level or not by the FED for the purpose of consolidation of wealth, power and control of it’s shareholders, because that has surely been the effect. Since 2008, ever fewer, ever larger and ever more powerful financial institutions exist, wielding enormous power and control over political bodies and entire populations. We have anonymous owners of a powerful banking syndicate and non transparent accounting. They claim immunity from any kind of audit. They are granted immunity by their employees (the US congress and Senate).

“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place” – Senator Dick Durbin on WJJG 1530AM’s Mornings with Ray Hanania

With the worlds assets defined as the marked to market value of all the currencies in existence (the debt) viewed as a balloon, this balloon popped in 2008. As the balloon burst (as money was lost), more money (debt) was created in an attempt to reinflate the balloon, but the total balloon size is now much smaller and even more importantly the composition of the balloon has changed. The post crisis actions have amounted to a wealth transfer from (John Q Public not too big to fail lost money) to (too big to fail got money). The trillions of dollars in losses were socialized, but the profits have all been privatized. Bailout capital was directly skimmed off the top by the people who caused the crisis and euphemistically called “bonuses” by their media sponsors.

So since 2008, not only did the FED not “fix” any problems, their global network of central banks, their shareholders, their affiliates and their too big to fails have effected a global wealth transfer from everyone else to them. It is notable that the too big to fail’s margin calls were met by the people of the United States and other countries, instantly doubling 200 plus accumulated years of US debt and globally demonstrating the institutions deemed too big to fail along with the governments themselves now getting even bigger and more powerful. This balloon reinflation was all financed by fiat money in the form of a guarantee to be able to tax the people’s future labor. So looking at any instantaneous balloon size as a pie chart, the capital allocated to the banks increased and the capital allocated to everyone else decreased. That is the definition of a wealth transfer and an explanation for the true state of the economy today.

Whether intentional or not, the creation and then the bursting of this last in a series of ever larger serial bubbles was orchestrated by Alan Greenspan. By suppressing short term interest rates for several years prior to the burst while watching a housing mania develop, the eventual bursting was assured. Mr Greenspan is now quick to deny any responsibility for this obvious cause and effect, as would be expected. As interest rates moved lower during this period, the size of the mortgage people could “afford” was increased and a mania ensued causing real estate prices to spiral higher, thus setting the stage for the housing bubble and it’s subsequent burst. The current steward, Mr Ben Bernanke, has overseen the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world, from the people, to the banks. Mr Greenspan and Mr Bernanke’s only remaining defenders are the people in the banking system, their corporate press portfolio, and a few shameless shills who still call themselves professors.

The important point to note is that this bursting balloon of debt was exceeded on 90-100 percent leverage and the assets marked to market is now a loss of some, all or more than the entire individual or corporate net worth. The continued fallout is not at all unlike rolling over a losing position at 95 percent leverage in the futures markets, absorbing the cost of carry at every rollover. At some point, everyone in this position goes bankrupt. Even after the bailouts, today in 2010, there is a suspicion that the banks are still technically insolvent, amid widespread technical insolvency among the population. We don’t know for sure because there is no transparency in the accounting. Assets can be held “off balance sheet” and are not required to be marked to market. Furthermore, the FED claims an immunity from any kind of audit.

Unrelated to balloon theory but important to note, many people realized the housing mania at the time, and yet the responsible parties all argue no one could have seen it in advance. They are still the ones in charge. That is cause for tremendous concern. Everyone however can agree at least that the bubble did burst.

Balloon Theory Overview

In summarizing the market action prior to, during and after the acute financial crisis of 2008, balloon theory can be used to explain the behavior of the global financial markets.

Balloon theory revolves around the simple idea that the global capital balloon is inflated or deflated by a global reserve currency status and the ground zero creation of the currency (debt) in by the FED NYC. As the balloon expands, the balloon capital is deployed from the US into markets around the world, inflating them as well. As the balloon contracts, the reverse happens. Margin calls in the US are met by repatriating foreign investments back into dollars. During the acute crisis, the US dollar was rising and commodity prices were falling. The corporate media pundits and the people who caused the crisis called it “a flight to safety” and “deflation”. A flight to safety to ground zero of the financial crisis? No, a repatriation of balloon capital back to the US to meet margin calls. So balloon theory says the whole “flight to safety” argument is a red herring or an erroneous explanation for a real event. There is no safety in an unpayable debt, which is what the US dollar and several other fiat currencies now represent.

Balloon theory would argue for a very simple analysis of global capital market flows and investing, at least for the time being until the reserve currency status of the US dollar is lost and a global central bank emerges. It would argue that if the balloon of debt is expanding, then capital is being deployed from NYC into every corner of the world, inflating all asset markets around the world as happened from 2000 to 2008. This explains why you can for the most part overlay an equity index chart from two seemingly unrelated countries and have them look more or less the same. They are both being inflated by the same balloon. When the balloon is inflating, then foreign assets are being bought and US dollars are being sold. When the balloon is deflating, foreign assets are being sold and US dollars are being bought to meet margin calls. The entries and exits with smaller doors experience greater volatility. When the US dollar was rising in the acute crisis phase, commodity prices were moving lower because they are priced globally in dollars and dollars were rising due to repatriation of money (debt) to met margin calls.

Balloon theory also offers a simple explanation for inflation. As money is printed, the balloon inflates, and as the capital is deployed globally, the chief US export becomes inflation. All asset markets around the world become inflated from too many dollars (too much debt). So we currently have a situation where the balloon burst, and an attempt is being made to reinflate the balloon by printing money. All the western central banks are following the same prescription, some more than others.

In the past two years since the 2008 balloon of debt burst, the worlds central banks have all printed money (bought their own debt) to finance it in what has amounted to an attempt to prop up their currencies versus real assets by eagerly buying them. This has been called quantitative easing or debt monetization. This action has now forced long term interest rates to an artificially low level.

Printing money out of nothing on behalf of the people’s future labor and giving the money an artificially high market value has provided the appearance of stabilization, but this is another red herring. In other words, if the people can’t pay the debt, then the current market value of the currency is incorrect. By a fraud, the central banks have all printed money (bought their own debt up to and beyond the people’s ability to finance it) and have all in the process fraudulently priced their currencies. At the present time, artificial relationships are now required to be maintained by brute force clandestine open market activities to coerce markets into established policy ranges. This is a warning sign of future instability. While appearing to be a “fix”, once free markets are now reliant on what are in effect stealth price controls on currencies, equity markets, interest rates and commodity prices.

If as a central banker you can price your currency by taxing up to an infinite amount of the people’s labor, then that poses new future systemic risks. On it’s most basic level, the people do not have an infinite amount of future labor available to tax. Thus on it’s most basic level, the worlds financial system currently rests on the fraudulent premise that the worlds central banks can tax their future labor up to an infinite amount.

The most fundamental problem with the post crisis policies is that although the balloon burst, the debt which has not yet defaulted and the derivatives still exist. So reinflation of the balloon by printing money piles more debt on to the existing debt only to achieve a balloon size smaller than the existing balloon before it burst. Balloon Theory says the instantaneous result of this action will be global asset inflation but at a reduced activity level which is exactly what we have seen. It says the long term result of this action will be decay in terms of a declining standard of living for all of the tightly coupled western monetary system economies. Lower aggregate incomes will meet higher taxes and increased cost of goods and services as the currency (or currencies), which have in effect become tokens of unpayable debts, continues to lose their legitimacy. Some countries will, and are being affected more than others. Social unrest will likely develop and indeed has already developed in some countries like Greece. It is obvious now however, as it was during the real estate bubble, that ever increasing and now in many cases unpayable debts are no kind of fix and must eventually be resolved. It will be resolved sooner, or later, but it will be resolved. Math doesn’t lie. Central Bankers, politicians and their corporate media staff do.